Bishopping around

The Catholic Church in Spain is becoming such a big joke I don't even know how long is going to take for people to stop going to mass. The bishops have today announced that they will discourage any Catholic from voting for any party that supports peace negotiations with ETA.

Well, that pretty much leaves us with no party to vote for. As UCD negotiated in 1977, PSOE in 1987 and PP in 1999 (yes, even if Aznar now claims not to have done, he did call ETA the 'Basque liberation movement').

So there you are if you are a Spanish Catholic you should convert to a new form of rare Spanish Catholic anarchysm!

It seems old fellas it's time you all get taken to a retirement house, you've absolutely lost it now.

You can find PSOE's official reponse (in Spanish) here

The international card in the campaign.

A small mistep by the Socialist camp yesterday has given Rajoy a bit of a boost. PSOE seems to have forgotten about the symbolic importance of international support in democratic politics. While Felipe Gonzalez in the 70s and 80s actively seeked the support of European Socialists in Germany, France and Scandinavia, Zapatero seems prone to avoid such endeavours.

However, it seems to me that under the current state of European social democracy, Zapatero is more popular and high profile abroad than any other Socialist leader in Europe could ever be in Spain. The only two strong leftwing governments in Europe are the UK and Spain. France, Germany and Italy have no strong Socialist oppositions that could be brought to endorse Zapatero. And in the case of Brown it would actually, under my point of view, backfire because of his support for the war in Iraq and the commonly held view in Spain that Labour isn't really a leftwing party and Brown isn't really Tony Blair.

On the other hand, Rajoy yesterday went away to Paris to meet with Sarkozy and Merkel in a UMP rally. As you can see in the video below, Rajoy doesn't look the most decissive of leaders, neither Sarkozy nor Merkel seem enthusiastic enough about Rajoy's presence. It looked more like a 'family obligation' sort of show, a bit like wearing that ugly sweater your grandma made when you go see her.

So many today in Spain may wonder if PSOE has lost support in Europe. I would say that would be a big mistake to make. Zapatero remains by far the most popular leftwing leader in Europe. When Segolene Royal was campaigning in France she brought Zapatero over to rally the French socialists. Sarkozy, despite his official endorsement of Rajoy yesterday, was quick then to point out shared views between Zapatero and himself. Furthermore, today Merkel and Zapatero are meeting in Majorca for the Spanish-German summit and the French-Spanish one, a month ago, brought about the most important anti-terrorist alliance ever agreed in Europe between Sarkozy and Zapatero.

Those that think Zapatero isn't a very influential leader abroad should think twice about it. When he has gone abroad he has achieved his proposed goals and he maintains excellent relations with our neighbours (Morocco, Algeria, France and Portugal), within the EU and in the UN, through the Alliance of Civilisations project. Those who equate international standing with Aznar-like noise-making are extremely ignorant about the nature of Spain's strengths in the international sphere. Spain should be a soft-power, a diplomatic bridge between Latin America, the Arab World and Europe. Our history proves that is where we should be and not trying to embrace more than we should, like Aznar did in Iraq.

Having said all that symbolism from a communication perspective counts, how about a US Democrat endorsement? That would really be quite something, and if is Obama even better.

Here is the video, it is certainly an awkward moment, I wouldn't really call that an endorsement...judge for yourselves...

She could be your mayor.

Ruiz Gallardon has announced that he might leave politics after the May 9 election. It seems he hasn't taken very well the lies, backstabbing and betrayals of his own party colleagues (look at the previous post).

This blog announced a couple of weeks ago that if Gallardon was to resign, horror! Ana Botella, Aznar's wife, would be the next Mayor of Madrid as the current Deputy Mayor. Today, we have one more reason to fear her arrival to the chair of command in the capital's town hall. She has blamed Madrid's smog crisis in the last few days on some kind of 'dust' coming from the Sahara!

Madrid has been suffering a massive smog crisis in the last few days with the town hall advising not to practice outdoor sports and encouraging the use of public transport. Ana Botella, responsible for the mayoral environment portfolio, has denied the need to cut down traffic in the city or look into pollution levels. She instead has blamed the situation on the intrusion of an African hot wind. Most probably the opening of the new M-30 ring road and the unending construction projects going on in the capital have nothing to do with it. Hold on a minute! actually the do, because what has gone up is nitrogen dioxide, produced by cars not 'African dust'. It has gone up 12 times since Saturday over the 220 micrograms maximum levels which aren't supposed to be reached more than 18 times in a year!

That is what PP can offer us, incompetent mayors, incompetent potential mayors and backstabbing presidential candidates. As that Labour poster used to read in 2001, be scared be very scared!

Rajoy's explanation goes up in smoke.

Before excluding Ruiz Gallardon from the party's congressional lists, Rajoy and PP officials used two preemptive arguments to protect themselves from attacks on such an irrational decision. Firstly, they said that mayors cannot be included in lists under internal party rules. Secondly, that Ruiz Gallardon could not go on the lists because mayors that did go on the lists had to be on the very top. Those were Rajoy's arguments to protect himself from accusations that PP was going centrist just for electoral purposes and they would come back to extremism after March 9.

Well, it seems that internal party rules can have exceptions, specifically 11 exceptions. And not all of them go as top candidates in provincial lists. Up to six of them are not at the very top, more than those that actually do, five.

Anyone still believes PP is genuinely gone moderate or it is just a wolf on sheep clothing? Also how can we trust a man to be President who stabs his own allies in the back to appease the most reactionary members of his right-wing establishment?

PSOE's Political Conference this weekend.

For those of you interested, PSOE's political conference is ready to go this weekend (26-27th January 2008).

The conference is organised for militants and party officials to get together and debate ideas and proposals for the electoral manifesto as well as to prepare the party and its base for the battle ahead.

Us, bloggers, have been invited by the party to participate in the conference, unfortunately my trip from London is a bit too expensive for PSOE to pay (perfectly understandable, the funds will be put to better use during the campaign), but I am grateful for the invitation nevertheless.

Key speeches and events will be available however through PSOE's online TV, so if you speak Spanish and feel like knowing how PSOE's internal democracy works then you can do it there.

For those of you who don't speak Spanish, don't worry, I'll be blogging the conference from London giving you all the details and gossip.

So come around here on the weekend, the international experts as well as party officials and grassroot activits will be down in Madrid and it's definitely going to be big!

The saddening evolution of the Victims' Association.

Today Jose Maria Aznar reappeared in public after his hardline allies removed the moderates from PP's Congressional lists for the May 9 election. He did so in the annual convention of the Association of the Victims of Terrorism, a body that aims at representing the interests of ETA victims. And as it has become customary, Aznar directly accused President Zapatero of lying to the victims about the peace process and directly asking for the victims' vote for PP in the coming election.

Frankly, I am not surprised at all. Since he lost the last election Aznar has wondered the streets full of resentment against Zapatero and taking on any job that would offer him an opportunity to spread his messianic propositions and his catastrophist view on the current government. What saddened me is how an association which every Spaniard has always respected and cared for has been led by a man, Francisco Alcaraz, into the most sectarian positions ever conceived in Spain about the Basque conflict. Alcaraz, in perfect synchronization with PP officials, has used insult and lies to attack Zapatero using the suffering of terrorist victims as a platform to reach out to the electorate. Both PP and Alcaraz have used the victims suffering and resentment to mobilise them against PSOE just to win votes from an electorate which is not immune to the victims' sensivitivy.
The invitation extended to Aznar today to openly request the vote for Rajoy in March, and the kind of insults heard today in the convention are clear evidence of how the Right in Spain has ditched parliamentary politics for neo-con like mass mobilisation in the streets.

I cannot but feel extremely sad that the suffering of so many victims and the sympathy their personal suffering produces in the Spanish public is being used by a political party so cheaply for the first time in the history of Spanish democracy. I, together with many leftwing voters, are united against ETA and wholeheartedly support the victims in their suffering and quest for justice. And we are hurt that PP is trying to divide us for a handful of votes.

I leave you with some of the statements said today in the conference:

Aznar: (about President Zapatero) 'he lacks courage and has too much arrogance and sectarism on him'.
'You should think extremely well about if you want to give your vote to someone that has lied to you on an issue as basic as (sic) terrorism'.
(On the peace process) 'He lied to the Spanish people'.

Alcaraz (President of the Victims' Association): (about President Zapatero) 'he obtained an electoral benefit out of 192 killings, we will be alert for the next trick' (referring to the Madrid bombings victims- their association refused to join Alcaraz's one and created an independent one called Victims of the 11-M).

Maria del Carmen Heras (widow of Fernando Mugica, killed by ETA in 1996): (about President Zapatero) 'he gained power the way we all know about, full of hatred for the death of his grandfather in the Civil War' (Zapatero's grandfather was executed by Franco's forces during the Civil War in Spain).

PP's internal crisis: the inside story.

After yesterday's incredible announcement by Rajoy that Gallardon won't be joining him in the Madrid list to Congress, today Arsenio Escolar has published in his blog an insider's story about what really happen. It seems the revolt was bigger than it actually looked yesterday.

According to Escolar:

At 5 pm yesterday Gallardon's name was included in the Congressional list as number 5 or 6. Rajoy wasn't sure yet because he didn't know if Zaplana was going to be head of list in Valencia, he was President there from 1995 to 2002, or if not he would have to be number 5 in Madrid.

Around 6 pm Francisco Camps, current President of Valencia and Zaplana's archienemy, spoke to Rajoy and threatened to resign if Zaplana became head of the list in Valencia. Camps' idea was to resign as President to be able to run for a Congressional seat himself. Rajoy gave up to Camps' pressure and accepted to include Zaplana in the list in Madrid. So by 6 pm Zaplana was number 5 and Gallardon number 6 in Madrid's list and Camps remained as President of Valencia.

But the key moment arrived at 7 pm, Aguirre, President of Madrid, found out on her way back from Malaga, most probably from the man himself, about Camp's victory over Rajoy. She went straight into Genova HQ to put a challenge of her own. With Gallardon present, Aguirre threatened Rajoy to resign as President of Madrid and run for Congress if Gallardon was included in the Madrid list. Rajoy once again gave up and removed Gallardon's name from the list.

After Rajoy's display of weakness, some allies of Gallardon started leaking to the press that the Mayor of Madrid had threatened to resign after the March 9 election if he wasn't included in the party's list. Rajoy today has been trying to regain his authority within the party. He's been pressuring Gallardon last night and this morning not to announce his departure from politics as the media was reporting. But it seems he's lost all authority, Gallardon has announced this morning in a press conference that after the March 9 election he will reflect on past events and take a decission on his political future.

So what looked as a terrible enough story about Rajoy's lack of authority has become an INMENSE story about Rajoy's lack of authority. Moreover, it says how little regard PP elected officials have for the offices they hold that are willing to use them as weapons to advance their political career in Madrid. But the most worrying development of it all I have just found out is that if Gallardon resigns as Mayor of Madrid, his successor will be Ana Botella, Aznar's own wife! who currently is Deputy Mayor. After all I'm not even sure if I want him to resign now...

Gallardon saw it coming.

Have a look at this video. Gallardon clearly upset about the designation of Manuel Pizarro, Aznar loyalist and former CEO of Endesa, as number 2 in the PP's Madrid list for Congress after Rajoy. He laughs and jokes around until Rajoy announces it, then his face simply freezes and after the meeting storms out without making any comments to the press.

Also the right wing press is saying that Aguirre threatened to resign as President of the Region of Madrid if Gallardon was made a candidate for a Congressional seat.

Rajoy loses his authority.

It's now official, Rajoy has given up to PP hardliners' pressure and decided not to include Alberto Ruiz Gallardon, Mayor of Madrid, in the list to Congress from Madrid.

As it's been mentioned many times in this blog, key party figures have started positioning themselves for a potential leadership contest within PP in case Rajoy loses the general election. Aguirre, President of the region of Madrid, and Gallardon, Mayor of the city, have been named as the strongest candidates, specially after Rodrigo Rato's departure to the private sector.

Gallardon, seen as a moderate with a cross-party appeal, have failed to promote himself within the party's structure contrlled by the hardliners, Aguirre among them, loyal to former President Aznar. Rajoy's inability to impose his wish of including Gallardon is a massive blow to his long and tortuous walk to the centre. In such a hierarchical party as PP, there are no primary elections or internal democracy of any kind, the leader is in control of all key decissions. This authoritarian model was best reflected in Aznar's personal election of Rajoy as his succesor in 2004 that the party ratified with 99% of the vote a month later. The hardliners ability to impose a decission on Rajoy, who has included Gallardon in his Monday 'maitines' executive meeting (the most important committee within PP, formed by Rajoy and his most trusted advisors), clearly debilitates his figure after a month of a strong presence of PP's leader in the news cycle and an increase of 0.4% in his popularity with the electorate.

With this surrender by Rajoy, Aguirre is a step closer to win the leadership in March if Rajoy loses. She already tightly controls the party in Madrid. It will be interesting to see what happens now in the run up to the election. If Rajoy cannot hold the party together and keep the chance of victory alive, key officials could start thinking about the leadership contest even before the campaign was over. Furthermore, it will be interesting to see what the electorate's reaction to this development will be. Gallardon is by far the most popular PP official with the electorate, however his allies within the party are very few.

Finally, it's also worrying how the likes of COPE radio, the Church's radio station, and other hardline media outlets have increased their influence within PP. Jimenez Losantos, COPE's star presenter, has publicly strongly criticised Gallardon for his moderation and openly opposed his incorporation to the party's list in Madrid.

Rajoy shoots himself on the foot (again).

Late last night a jubilant Rajoy announced that he had convinced Manuel Pizarro to be his number 2 in the list for Madrid. Pizarro, former CEO of Endesa, is a business tycoon that became notorious this last year when he battled the Zapatero Government when the control of Endesa was being disputed between EOn and Gas Natural, both also energy companies.

It seems curious to me that Rajoy, the defender of the 'great Spanish nation', could offer the ministry of the economy to a man who fought long and hard to sell Endesa to Germany's EOn even though Gas Natural's, a Spanish company, offer was better. I'd say it seems obvious now that Pizarro was opposing Gas Natural's bid mainly on political terms, guided by PP, and that effort is paying off now with a PP offer to go on its lists.

Rajoy is happy, he got a proper economist, unlike Arias Cañete before, that can actually speak economics to debate with PSOE's heavyweight Pedro Solbes. However he should have read the law before announcing Pizarro's name. Under the incompatibility of public office law, Pizarro won't be able to participate in any Cabinet meeting or take any decission on issues related to Endesa, because of his recent post in the company. In practice this means that pretty much the Finance Minister of the Central Government of Spain wouldn't be able to take decissions related to the energy market! such decissions include, tariff policy, the future of nuclear energy, future infrastructure plans and even a Finance Minister's key role, the Budget, specifically the section on energy policy.

So there you are once again image over substance is the greatest ill of PP. Rajoy has put up a person partisan to the core, with no experience on fiscal or employment policy and on top of that cannot exercise his post's competences because of incompatibility, but Rajoy must be thinking, hey! but everyone know who he is. Are we going back to PP's policies of friends in government? We surely are. I don't want a half-minister in the key department under the current global economic slow-down just because he's been a good ally of Rajoy these last years . Rajoy once again doesn't think for the good of the country he just thinks about how to win at any cost, imagine what he would be like in government!

Time to get serious.

Today the President of Spain has officially dissolved Congress and announced the King the dates for the electoral contest. The race is on and now it's time we all Socialist unite and work together for a new mandate on March 9.

Having said that, it's Zapatero who needs to get serious about it now. His announcement yesterday in El Mundo that international institutions, not the Spanish Government, had kept contact with ETA even after the terrorist attack in Madrid in December 2006 is certainly a big blow to PSOE's moves to neutralise ETA as a campaign issue.

Zapatero is an extremely polarising character. It's the kind of politician that either you hate or you love. He should try to soften that. Although his Presidency has been an enormous success and has moved Spain forward after 8 years of inmovilism under Aznar's Government, it's obvious that its communication policy has been extremely poor. A Government that has achieved high economic growth, created employment and promoted social rights vanguard of the world, cannot be ahead just by 3 points, within the statistical margin of error, in today's Cadena SER Pulsometro poll.

I still believe the contest can be won and it will be won and with a bigger majority than polls show these days. But it should have been a victory with a certain absolute majority and this is not the case. If Zapatero is reelected he should certainly think about his communication strategy and should bring in new faces to his communication team. PSOE under Zapatero has modernised the party's internal structure and equated it to other modern social democratic parties in Europe, specially Labour in the UK. It's time he brings in professional communicators to his team, so many achievements this term aren't being explained properly to the people. And to those that could be thinking that I'm talking just about spin and image over substance, I'd say that communicating with the citizens is an essential goal of Parliamentary democracy.

Time to professionalise political communication within PSOE, a radical reform in Ferraz HQ is essential to avoid this term's problems next time around.

New Socialist Youth video.

I just watched this new electoral video by the Socialist Youth and I cannot agree more with its arguments. The night of the 14th of March 2004 thousands of young people celebrating PSOE's victory then chanted to Zapatero the now famous slogan 'No nos falles' ('Don't fail us' in Spanish). That chanting represented the trust millions of young voters had given Zapatero through their vote.

This video, though in Spanish, shows why the Zapatero Presidency has done more than any other before for the young members of society. For all of those of you that understand Spanish here you are.

A good day for Zapatero.

After a couple of weeks of a good news cycles for PP yesterday PSOE grabbed the initiative again.

In the morning it was Rajoy who made a fool of himself by announcing that if elected he will create a new ministry of the family and social welfare. This announcement was aimed at capitalising on the Church's rally a week ago in favour of the 'traditional' idea of the family, that of a man and a woman. I surfed around different blogs and comment sections of newspapers and other media outlets to find out the reaction to this 'unusual' announcement. It was unanimous, every single comment, besides of those coming from the less sane citizens of Spain, either joked about the proposal or felt it was outright populist. Furthermore, many requested to know what would then happen with the already established Social Affairs Ministry. A legitimate question I would say, specially if the creation of new and innecessary bureaucracy comes from a self-appointed economic liberal that is giving away tax cuts as if they were sweets. And they say PSOE can't handle the economy, wait for Mr. morality to come in with a blank cheque for the religious right.

The second and most important announcement of the day came from France. The first Sarkozy-Zapatero bilateral summit ended with the announcement of the creation of a new permanent police command formed by French and Spanish forces to cooperate in the fight against ETA's terrorism. ETA has been by far the least popular issue for the Government in the last four years. PP's disloyal opposition to the peace process became the first time in the democratic history of Spain that a party used the fight against terrorism for electoral purposes. But that opposition of simplistic arguments and outright lies have hurt the Government specially after the failure of the cease fire. This new announcement shows that Zapatero gave peace a chance but didn't disregard police action as essential in the fight against ETA. This new agreement with France is by far the most important in the history of the conflict since Mitterrand agreed to 'offer a helping hand' in the 1980s to Felipe Gonzalez. PP officials were gutted, Sarkozy, a rightwing populist like them had just blown one of their key issues for the campaign. Sarkozy's decission together with the rejection today by Congress of PP's proposal for a debate on Batasuna's legal status, political wing of ETA, before its dissolution have further weakened the terrorist front in the campaign.

So things are looking up. I argued on Sunday that PSOE has a good chance to win with an even greater majority on March 9. The economic debate will blow over because although it could be bad for PSOE, PP has got no economic team to compete with the Socialist one. The debate on the fight against terrorism is looking better by the day for PSOE and if the illegalisation of Batasuna's sister party, ANV, arrives before the election it will be even better for the Socialists. If PSOE can keep control of the news cycle until the campaign officially starts and then runs a serious and energetic campaign I believe everyone will be suprised of the end result. I still believe an absolute majority is possible for Zapatero.

Proyecto 80% / Project 80%

We in the left in Spain have been letting PP and the right to take the iniative in the streets for the past four years. We have let them insult us, lie and claim the streets. And we say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

It's time the leftwing majority in Spain reclaims our rightful place in the political sphere.

The spirit of the opposition to the war in Iraq must be reclaimed to put Zapatero back in power with an even greater majority.

Let's mobilise again. Let's all leftwing voters in Spain get out to vote on the 9th of March, let's bring participation to a historic 80%.

The economy: PP's lies.

PP has found two months before the general election in the economic slow-down a new argument to attack the Zapatero Governmennt.

Rajoy argued today in COPE, the Church's radio station, that PSOE has blown in these last four years the previous PP government's sound economic indicators.

The reality is very different and Rajoy knows it, here are some arguments of why the Spanish economy is slowing down today.

1) Oil prices are at an all time high. Oil prices are having a great impact on inflation today across the globe. And in Spain is no different. However Rajoy seems to forget that the reason for the escalation of oil prices today is due to the war in Iraq and the instability that suffers the Middle East. The Bush Administration is responsible today for the escalation in oil prices due to the unlawful war his administration undertook in Iraq, and that same war was supported by the PP Government under Aznar and of which Rajoy was Vicepresident. Therefore Rajoy and his party are directly responsible today of inflation in our country.

2) The slow-down in the construction industry, engine of economic growth in Spain, is due to a necessary change in the economic priorities of the Government. The Zapatero Government has focused on switching the Spanish economy to one of sustainable development and diversification, including greater exports, productivity and value-added production (high-tech for example). Many economists have been warning of the possible burst of the construction bubble in Spain, and construction companies have moved swiftly, with that idea in mind, by diversifying their businesses. Ferrovial, ACS, Sacyr or Acciona have entered the energy, services and other industries to prevent the potential burst from affecting their profits. The Government as well has been preventing the burst, happening today in the UK for example, by providing a soft landing. It was the Aznar Government which promoted that kind of unsustainable growth, even today regions under PP (Murcia, Valencia, Madrid) maintain that economic model and are the ones suffering greater from the economic slow-down. PSOE was left no alternative than reforming the Spanish economy to compete with other developed economies as well as protecting the environment.

So there you are, if Rajoy wasn't so prone to lying and hiding the facts, would realise that the Zapatero Government has been modernising the Spanish economy these last four years to make it competitive. And has done so with a GDP growth of over 3.8% as well as creating half of the new jobs in the EU. The economic slow down of these last two months are due to PP's economic policy from 1996 to 2004 based on construction and a war in Iraq that has put oil prices up to an all time high.

Four more years for Zapatero will mean further modernisation of the Spanish economy to compete with those of developed countries such as Germany, Ireland or the Scandinavian countries. A Rajoy Government would mean more of the kind of growth based in speculation and unsustainable development seen in the late 90s and evident today in the regions they still control.

Reality check

So everyone in the Socialist camp is starting to get nervous. As we get closer to election day many Socialist bloggers and activists are starting to wonder if PP could actually win the general election in March. Polls show PSOE ahead by just 2.5 points at national level and people wonder if the economic slow-down, though still growing, the Catholic Church open attacks and PP's communication strategy are starting to pay off for the conservatives.

Well, let me reassure some Socialists out there. We are in a good position to still win , and possibly big, on the 9th of March.

First of all, the official campaign hasn't started yet. We have two presidential debates, where voters will be able to compare Zapatero to Rajoy directly. It isn't a surprise Zapatero offered the debate and Rajoy was reluctant about accepting the challenge. In terms of personal ratings Rajoy's are the lowest in the history of Spanish democracy since 1978. On the other side Zapatero's are on a healty 58%, higher than Aznar's in 2000 when he won with absolute majority and similar to the golden years of the charismatic Felipe Gonzalez in the 1980s.

Secondly, voters before election day tend to criticise the Government for its failures and tend to overlook its achievements, that greatly outnumber the former. The important thing is that on election day the option will be a good Zapatero Government that has produced high economic growth, high employment figures, new social rights and has raised pensions and the minimum wage or a Rajoy opposition based on disloyalty on counterterrorist policy, demagogy in the territorial debate and no substance in anything thar really matters to voters. When it gets to March 9 voters will have to choose between Zapatero's positive vision or Rajoy's catastrophism.

El Pais and other outlets within the Prisa media group seem to have distanced themselves from PSOE. I will say that they are letting PSOE know that their support isn't for free, which is the right position, no Socialst government should be complacent with its achievements. But eventually PRISA won't let PP win without a fight, they are just making sure PSOE understand that the battle isn't yet won and that a tough fight should be put up. The communication war has been won by PP so far, but PSOE has a successful term and great candidates up to hit back on the prestige card.

I have been looking at the electoral map for a while now and hope for a great landslide is there. Firstly, Madrid, Rajoy's popularity there is lower than his national average, which means he most probably won't replicate Gallardon and Aguirre's landlsides there in the local elections. Murcia, with the latest corruption cases many in the rural areas could go PSOE this time around, it is doubtful, but we only need 6.000 votes to bring home the extra Congress seat allocated this time around, that would mean PP 6 seats and PSOE 4, not bad for a region politically monopolised by PP. In Valencia, again it's Rajoy who presents himself as candidate. Rita Barbera, Valencia's Mayor, has already announced she doesn't want to be candidate, which hurts PP's list there. Furthermore, Valencia is one of the regions where IU, United Left, gets one of their five seats nationally, so there is a strong left-wing minority there. Finally, Castilla y Leon, a moderate conservative region enjoys the fact that Zapatero is from Leon and the high-speed train has arrived to Segovia and Valladolid, many will be happy to change their vote in a region famously neglected previously. In the PSOE camp on the other hand, Catalonia might be upset about transport disruptions, but would they let anti-Catalanist PP win? if the election gets to close they will come out to vote for PSOE. In the nationalist regions, Galicia, Basque Country and Catalonia, PSOE has defended nationalists' right to express their believes against PP's Spanish centralism, many that voted nationalists in regional elections will go PSOE at national level just to stop Rajoy from winning.

To all Socialist supporters out there I will say come down. We have been united for four years against the demagogic attacks by PP. PP got no programme for government and a leader without any charisma whatsoever. The economic situation benefits them now? yes it does, but Pedro Solbes is our economic heavy-weight, where is theirs?. Our team, ideas and candidate are better. When the campaign officially starts the PSOE machine will roll into battle with all its assets intact. PP has spent four years creating chaos because it helps them to avoid policy, but when it comes to campaigning policy offers and an able team are what counts to the electorate, we got both and PP got none. You will see, we will be better off than it seems today.

The Church enters the campaign.

On Sunday the governing hierarchy of the Spanish Catholic Church organised a mass rally in Madrid to denounce certain liberal policies promulgated by the Zapatero Government in the last four years.

Bishops from across Spain denounced the new divorce law, gay marriages and the new education plan as well as the 1985 abortion legislation.

Such display of moralistic righteousness and social intolerance is common among the Catholic hierarchy in Spain. But this time around their claims went even further and entered the very political. They denounced the rolling back of Human Rights and the possible dissolution of democracy because of these laws and openly attacked the Zapatero Government.

This is the last step taken by PP and his right-wing apparatus to poison even further the political situation in the country. Couple of months ago I wrote in this blog that PSOE wasn't planning to present in his electoral manifesto any issues that could be seen by the Catholic hierarchy as a head on attack on them. I called for PSOE to rethink their position, and I think the bishops' show on Sunday proves my argument right. The Spanish Catholic Church is certainly one of the most conservative and anachronistic ones that exist today. Having openly supported the Francoist dictatorship, they still enjoy fiscal and legal benefits unknown anywhere else. Today I ask myself why should my taxes be paying this church to spread hatred and intolerance as well as openly oppose my political believes? A revision of the State-Church agreements must now be undertaken and it's the Catholic Church that has forced such revision. Their faith is in decline not because of a Socialist Government but because of their fundamentalist views on social issues that Spaniards dealt morally with a long time ago.

Furthermore, I second Jose Blanco's, PSOE's secretary of organisation, demand that if PP is in full agreement with the Catholic hiearchy that they present in their electoral manifesto a promise to derogate the following laws, denounced by the bishops: gay marriage and adoption, equality, abortion and education. I can assure you they won't do it, because they know the Spanish public in general supports them. They let the Catholic Church do the dirty job for them, if that it isn't cowardice you let me know a better definition for it.